This paper studies the use of cash and credit for making transactions when there is asymmetric information in credit markets. For relatively low inflation rates, equilibria are of the pooling variety and low-credit-risk consumers signal their riskiness to lenders only indirectly by establishing a good track record in credit markets. For higher inflation rates there may exist a separating equilibrium in which low-credit-risk consumers directly signal their type to lenders by specializing in cash early in life and specializing in credit later in life. The greater the degree of adverse selection in credit markets, the wider the range of inflation rates for which a separating equilibrium exists. Credit usage is increasing in the inflation rate, but greater adverse selection may increase or decrease credit usage depending on the parameterization. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: E44.

The paper addresses the effects of international liquidity conventions on the conduct and success of short-run income stabilization. Two interdependent and noncooperative nations attempt to minimize output variance subject to the international convention that adequate international reserve stocks be maintained. We demonstrate that the Nash outcome of nations which are bound by international reserve constraints is Pareto superior to the Nash outcome of unconstrained nations. With a formal model, we derive the set of Pareto-optimal liquidity conventions and explore the sensitivity of this set to the macroeconomic structural and stochastic characteristics of the nations and to the stabilization instruments that are employed.

Introduction. Some influences of the war on the supply of fertilizer materials, 391. — I. Classification and uses of nitrogen compounds, 394. — II. Sources of fixed nitrogen: Chilean nitrate, 398; coal, 401; air, 404. — III. The fixation of atmospheric nitrogen by chemical processes: arc process, 405; cyanamid process, 408; Haber process, 410; cyanide process, 414. — Summary of the situation at the outbreak of the war, 416. — IV. Developments in nitrogen fixation since the outbreak of the European war: Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, 417; Germany and Austria, 418; Japan, Italy, France, and Great Britain, 420; United States, 422. — V. The future policy of the United States, 428.

The commodity clause legislation, 579. — Course of clause through Congress, 581. — Its effect on the anthracite railroads, 586. — The Philadelphia and Reading Railway, 588. — The Lehigh Valley Railroad, 591. — The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, 594. — The Delaware and Hudson Company, 595. — Difficulties in complying with clause, 596. — Extent of compliance, 598. — Attempt to suspend penalties, 599. — Proposed amendment of the clause, 600. — Government prosecution, 601. — Decision of the Supreme Court, 602. — Further efforts to amend the clause, 605. — Effect of the Supreme Court decision, 607. — Organization of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Coal Company, 607. — Readjustment of the affairs of the Delaware and Hudson Company, 610. — Another Supreme Court decision, 611. — Organization of the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company, 613. — Conclusion, 614.

The challenge of leadership is to look beyond the current expansion to consider the long–term outlook for the U. S. economy. My good friend Paul W. McCracken once described this process as looking across the valley to see what is on the other side. His message was: “What will be different on the other side of the valley is far more relevant to business planning than the valley itself.” Such advice is particularly meaningful at this time because of the basic need for more stability in our economic policies.